All Forum Posts by: Sarah Kensinger

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Hey @Trent Barga, ok, well that sounds like something that would work for you, especially if you plan to use it.

Speaking of Ohio, have you thought of buying up a few places near where Intel is building the fab? Licking County.

There is a ton of labor coming to build it out, including a bunch of specialized folks once the building itself is erected. Outfitting an Intel fab is no mean feat.

There could be a play for short term longer stay rentals in the 3 month to a year range. Just the fiber runs alone would be in the miles.

3000 new jobs estimated.

Here in Ohio STRs hardly cash flow well, your market is more grandma and grandpa coming to visit the grandchildren. The only exceptions are Cleveland and Hocking Hills area, and those can be very seasonal. The house marketing here is tough since a property no sooner hits the market and it's gone, especially with all the west coast investors buying everything up here.

Quote from @Connor Dahl:

Does anyone have experience investing in Miami Beach? Looking at a couple deals right now where I should be able to get cheaper debt (seller financing). Would love to run numbers by some people to get their thoughts.

Why don't you create a new thread with your question and tag Miami. I'm sure several people can help you.

Quote from @Nathan M kiefer:

your best option is to go on vrbo and air and look at similar props, as well as airdna.

at the end of the day the numbers you are seeing are comps for air and vrbo together most of the time but will miss out of direct bookings and the like.

unfortunately there isn't a good reporting platform or projection that is severely accurate. if your lucky you find a house/condo/whatever that's comparable to yours and doesn't do anything but use air and vrbo then it will be accurate.

from my experience those platforms (when using them for comparison) are at best 80% accurate in regards to TOTAL bookings and income. 

People will disagree but the bottom line is i pulled up the averages for mine on those platforms and we do full accounting so we know within $100 what we do in our homes and the comparison and reporting that air and vrbo use isnt accurate because its only worrying about capturing that public information. 

a lot of people have failed because they rely on that..

The sites are just an average and most outperform them. I actually know a lot of people are struggling because all they did was check the OTAs, and didn't fully underwrite a property. It's not doing what they thought the property should, because the numbers where an educated guess. You must know your numbers before taking the plunge! 

Quote from @Laura Krukowski:

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

I would definitely start by listening to some STR podcasts, follow some STR coaches that are more adding value then selling their program on social media, and do a deep dive into the STR community. But here are some answers to your questions....

1. Yes, you need a contract that way you and the owner have an agreement in writing, and everyone knows what is expected from each other. Ours is pretty close to a LTR contract but of course changed to fit the STR modal.

2. We get paid on the 15th of each month and we would send an invoice. Ideally it would be great if you could get a credit card on file and charge it every month. Of course, you should still send an invoice breaking down the gross income from the property, charges for your services, purchasing supplies, cleaner fees, etc.

3. If you're thinking of charging 20% then you would get that percentage out of each booking....after the stay has been completed and the OTA has paid out the money. So, if there's a discount or a cancellation, there's no haggle about who gets what, everyone gets paid after the stay has been complete. You would need to decide if your 20% comes out of the total before the OTA fees or after, and that should be in writing.

4. The guest actually pays the cleaning fee on a STR, but the OTA lumps it in the payout to the host. So, you would take that amount of money and pay the cleaner. Since you would be managing the property, it should be something you take care of.

5. Your idea of lawn and snow is exactly how we handle those services. The owner lines up who they want to do it....and yes if you have contacts suggest them!....and the owner would also work out payment with those companies. But you would be the main contact person, that way you know who is coming when and can warn guests and of course you would need to call the snow removal company when it's needed.  

6. This question is entirely up to you! I'm sorry it was somehow missed on here that you're a realtor and there are strong opinions about management qualifications of STRs on this forum. But you can choose to have the listing in your name or use the owners name and add yourself as the co-host. If it's in your name you would "own" the listing, and vice versa if it's in the owner's name. So, if you think there might be a chance that later you would step away from this project, you could have it in the owner's name so they can keep the listing and reviews. 

There are quite a few software's and tools you can use to make this an easy and seamless process. It can be a bit over whelming at times and interesting situations may arise, but if it's something you would like to try go for it! Start learning all you can and take the plunge, you never know what you might be good at and enjoy until you actually try it! If you have any more questions or would like to talk, feel free to reach out!

 Oh Sarah this is wonderful help thank you for taking the time to write this out. 

When you say OTA , you mean the platform the listing is on, correct? (Air BnB, VRBO etc)...(Sorry, I am not familiar with this acronym)

I may take you up on reaching out for more specific questions...thank you so much!!!!

Yes, sorry I didn't explain OTA...I wondered if you knew :) 
It means online travel agency, so that would be every medium that you can put a STR listing on....Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com etc.

You can't use LTR income at all to analyze a STR. Not only is the income 2-3 times more but it's a completely different modal. Check out the free version of Airdna, STRinsights, and Rabbu to find numbers and comps on a STR. Then I usually confirm those numbers by a quick search on Airbnb and VRBO. Then of course you need to break down monthly expenses and find your COC return, to find out if the property would be cash flowing enough to make a good STR. If you need any help going through the steps to analyze a property, feel free to reach out!

I use about every component of Airdna, all of it is great data. Especially downloading the numbers into a spreadsheet! One of my favorites is the rentalizer with the comparable properties, that gives a good feel for how the surrounding area is doing and who the competition would be. If I'm looking in a certain area the top properties show me where some of the best neighborhoods are and again who the top competition would be. Then of course you can break things down by bedroom count, and value of a property and see several years' worth of market trends. And don't forget that Airdna lumps the cleaning fees with the revenue from a property since the OTAs pay it all out to the owner in one sum.

Your numbers above make me think the property is too expensive for the gross income it might produce. A cap rate of 5.5 is pretty low in the STR space. Also use the above numbers to find your COC return, that is pretty much the most important number out of them all!

I would definitely start by listening to some STR podcasts, follow some STR coaches that are more adding value then selling their program on social media, and do a deep dive into the STR community. But here are some answers to your questions....

1. Yes, you need a contract that way you and the owner have an agreement in writing, and everyone knows what is expected from each other. Ours is pretty close to a LTR contract but of course changed to fit the STR modal.

2. We get paid on the 15th of each month and we would send an invoice. Ideally it would be great if you could get a credit card on file and charge it every month. Of course, you should still send an invoice breaking down the gross income from the property, charges for your services, purchasing supplies, cleaner fees, etc.

3. If you're thinking of charging 20% then you would get that percentage out of each booking....after the stay has been completed and the OTA has paid out the money. So, if there's a discount or a cancellation, there's no haggle about who gets what, everyone gets paid after the stay has been complete. You would need to decide if your 20% comes out of the total before the OTA fees or after, and that should be in writing.

4. The guest actually pays the cleaning fee on a STR, but the OTA lumps it in the payout to the host. So, you would take that amount of money and pay the cleaner. Since you would be managing the property, it should be something you take care of.

5. Your idea of lawn and snow is exactly how we handle those services. The owner lines up who they want to do it....and yes if you have contacts suggest them!....and the owner would also work out payment with those companies. But you would be the main contact person, that way you know who is coming when and can warn guests and of course you would need to call the snow removal company when it's needed.  

6. This question is entirely up to you! I'm sorry it was somehow missed on here that you're a realtor and there are strong opinions about management qualifications of STRs on this forum. But you can choose to have the listing in your name or use the owners name and add yourself as the co-host. If it's in your name you would "own" the listing, and vice versa if it's in the owner's name. So, if you think there might be a chance that later you would step away from this project, you could have it in the owner's name so they can keep the listing and reviews. 

There are quite a few software's and tools you can use to make this an easy and seamless process. It can be a bit over whelming at times and interesting situations may arise, but if it's something you would like to try go for it! Start learning all you can and take the plunge, you never know what you might be good at and enjoy until you actually try it! If you have any more questions or would like to talk, feel free to reach out!

This just isn't going to work, nothing good ever comes from skirting around the laws/rules. You can rent for 30 days, jump into the mid-term rental circles and learn all you can. Or just rent it for 30 days and if people want to stay there, they'll pay the full 30 days even though they can't be there the whole time. That happens a lot on some of the islands in FL... 30 days rentals that actually only have people staying at the property for maybe 2-3 weeks. But I would check into your options and market on turning the cabin into a mid-term rental. 

I'm sorry to say this but I think you have lost the account unless you can entice her to change it over to the business. It should have always been under business credentials since you had all the other business info on the account. Maybe someone else has some suggestions that I don't know about, but this seems to be a true bummer situation!

It's actually a well-known fact that if the primary bedroom in a STR has a king bed, that property is usually booked before a queen bed. And if it's more than one bedroom that can hold a king that's even better! It's a top-secret trick to getting more bookings. ;) People love to have a king bed on vacation especially if they can't have one in their personal home! But if the rooms are small and it would make walking around the bed tight, it's better to stick with a queen. If you can help it, you don't ever want guests to feel like it's a small house/room.